Florida
LSU women win big over Florida, setting up likely top-five clash with South Carolina
The LSU women’s basketball team will be undefeated when it meets No. 2 South Carolina.
On Sunday, the 80-63 road win that the No. 5 Tigers (20-0, 5-0) picked up o over Florida assured them of that fact.
Mikaylah Williams, Flau’jae Johnson and Aneesah Morrow teamed up to build a 17-0 fourth-quarter run that propelled LSU to its lopsided win. Johnson kicked off the scoring spree by hitting an open jumper, and Morrow punctuated it by converting an easy layup. In the time between, the Tigers shot 5 of 6 from the field, while forcing Florida to miss its first six shots of the quarter.
“Listen, when you can empty (the bench) and play everybody on your team with five minutes to go in the game and you’re up 28,” coach Kim Mulkey said, “knowing what we face next, that’s a good day.”
LSU played two tight Southeastern Conference games before they traveled to Gainesville, Florida, to face the Gators (11-9, 2-4). A last-second shot lifted the Tigers to a two-point road win over No. 15 Tennessee on Jan. 9, then a late surge of offense propelled them to a six-point home victory over Vanderbilt on Monday.
On Sunday, LSU won by a more comfortable margin.
And this time, its defense keyed the win.
Florida converted just 9 of the 28 field goals it attempted across the second and third quarters, a stretch of play that LSU won 44-27. The Tigers forced the Gators into 24 turnovers, and converted them into 35 points. Overall, Florida shot just 38% from the field, becoming the second SEC team this season to hit less than 40% of its shots against LSU.
In the third quarter, the Tigers played most of their offense through Williams, the star sophomore who finished with 22 points on 8-of-18 shooting and eight rebounds. Morrow chipped in 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting and 10 rebounds, and Johnson added 19 points on 8-of-17 shooting, but the LSU bench notched only 11 points, finishing with fewer than 12 for the second game in a row.
Freshman guard Liv McGill led Florida with 21 points and six assists. Freshman Me’Arah O’Neal, the daughter of LSU great Shaquille O’Neal, grabbed seven rebounds in 15 minutes.
“One thing that we did do good, and we’ve improved today was turnovers,” Mulkey said. “We only had nine for the entire game and for a while, there it was only six, so that’s a big part of why you extended the lead like we did. You’re getting yourself a shot every time.”
LSU started the game with a quick 7-0 run. But then Florida called a timeout, started to dribble penetrate, hit shots and slow down the Tigers’ halfcourt offense with a zone defense. In the first half, LSU trailed by as many as six points and entered halftime with just a 37-33 lead.
Then the Tigers played sharper defense that was a building block that ignited their transition offense, fueled their dominant second half and added another victory atop their now 20-game win streak — already the second-best start in program history. LSU attempted 14 more field goals than Florida, while also scoring 40 points in the paint and 26 on the fast break.
Mulkey has now led her team to at least 20 wins in each of her 25 seasons as a head coach.
Meanwhile, Morrow posted her 92nd career double-double, tying her with former Oregon forward Jillian Alleyne for the second-most in NCAA Division I history. LSU’s win over Florida was the 123rd game of her career.
Next, the Tigers will hit the road to play the most-anticipated game of their regular season.
That matchup, a likely top-five showdown with No. 2 South Carolina, will tip off at 7 p.m. Thursday on ESPN.
Ohio State lost 62-59 to Penn State on Sunday, which means that LSU and No. 1 UCLA are the last two undefeated Division I teams left. The Bruins are one of only two squads that have defeated the Gamecocks over the past three seasons.
LSU is 0-4 against South Carolina under Mulkey.
“We’re gonna enjoy this victory today,” Mulkey said. “Any victory on the road in our league is an accomplishment, but we know what we face next, a tremendous challenge to play the defending champions and do it at their place.”
Florida Tech students working on prototypes of a robotic manatee
Florida Tech students working on prototypes of a robotic “Mechanatee” manatee for a variety of research possibilities.
This past year brought mixed milestones for manatees: near-record deaths for young sea cows but also a bit more seagrass for grazing, some new scientific insights and other hints of hope for 2026.
While they kept dying in droves, sea cows on the Space Coast — among their most important feeding spots — found more seagrass in the northern Indian River Lagoon. And a landmark legal ruling mandated that Florida’s most popular threatened species will soon swim in cleaner waters and must be fed lettuce to prevent winter starvation.
Here’s how the year in manatee news played out:
More manatees died but more also live
Good news arrived in recent years regarding the overall sea cow population. Florida estimated in 2021-2022 that its manatee population was between 8,350 to 11,730, up from estimates of less than half of that only a few decades ago.
But in 2025, Brevard County topped Florida’s manatee deaths, with young sea cows continuing to be the hardest hit, despite the local seagrass gains. State biologists suspect the young are still perishing as a result of a long-term famine.
Brevard typically leads Florida sea-cow deaths, because most seagrass (manatees’ main food) grows here in the 72-mile-long county’s portion of the 156-mile-long Indian River Lagoon.
According to the most recent stats from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, through Dec. 26:
- Brevard had the most deaths: 118 manatees died in Brevard, compared to 100 in 2024. Lee County was second highest in 2025, with 113 manatee deaths.
- Brevard’s deaths included: 9 by watercraft; 3 other human causes; 50 perinatal; 13 cold stress; 13 natural; 9 undetermined; and 21 not necropsied.
- Statewide: 628 manatees died, topping the previous two years of 556 in 2024 and 546 in 2023. That still was less than the five-year average of 719 manatee deaths. Those deaths included: 97 by watercraft; 9 from a flood gate/canal lock; 9 other human causes; 135 perinatal; 33 cold stress; 63 natural; 50 undetermined; and 232 not necropsied.
- One in five Florida manatees died within a year of birth: The 135 so-called “perinatal” manatee deaths — those that die within a year of birth — were 21% of the overall 628 manatee deaths last year. That was less than the record 149 perinatal deaths through Dec. 26, 2024, which increased to 154 total perinatal deaths for that year. But 2025 topped the five-year average of 104 perinatal deaths.
More landmark legal protection
In May, a federal judge ruled that Florida has to temporarily stop approving new septic tanks near the northern Indian River Lagoon and plan to start feeding manatees again when they are faced with winter starvation.
Brevard is offering homeowners financial help to meet that and other state septic-tank mandates.
The new manatee rules will remain in effect until the state gets a federal permit that allows so-called “incidental takes” of threatened manatees, the judge ruled. Incidental take refers to the unintentional (but not unexpected) death, injury, or harassment of a protected species during otherwise lawful activity.
In a separate legal battle, conservation groups have for several years been suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reclassify manatees from “threatened” back to “endangered.” Last year, the service declined to return Florida manatees to “endangered” status, a ruling environmental groups continue to challenge.
New manatee rehab opens at Brevard Zoo
Last year, Brevard Zoo took in the first two manatee patients — Churro and Randa — at the zoo’s new $2.1 million sea cow rehab center. As with the zoo’s sea turtle rehab, the facility is not open to the general public. But on April 4, the zoo gave Gov. Ron DeSantis a behind-the-scenes tour as the zoo celebrated the center’s opening with a ribbon cutting.
Florida Tech makes strides with robotic manatee
In 2025, Florida Tech students made leaps forward with a robotic manatee, called “Mechanatee.” They hope in years ahead to use the robot to study real manatees in the wild without disturbing them. The robot will mimic the movements and communication of manatees to gather data on their behavior and habitat. The project is still in its early stages, but the team hopes to eventually test Mechanatee in Belize.
Other sea-cow scientific breakthroughs:
Several other groundbreaking studies in 2025 showed, among other things, that a popular herbicide is suppressing manatee immunity, that sea cows aren’t nearly as longstanding Florida natives as once thought and are sophisticated navigators.
- In January, University of Florida researchers found that the popular herbicide glyphosate can reduce manatee immune cell activity by more than 27%. That suggests sea cows living near high agricultural or residential runoff are more vulnerable to diseases and infections, even if they aren’t directly starving.
- Manatees are relative newcomers to Florida: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says on its website: “As its name suggests, the Florida manatee is native to Florida and is found primarily in coastal areas throughout the state.” But a landmark study in the journal PLOS One released in January 2025 by University of South Florida found almost no manatee bones in more than 70 Native American settlements older than a few hundred years. That suggests manatees only likely began migrating from the West Indies when the climate started heating up, beginning at the end of the 19th century with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the USF researchers concluded. Cooler temperatures lasting until the late 1800s probably kept cold-sensitive sea cows from migrating much north of the West Indies, USF concluded.
- In April, a study lead by New College in Sarasota used post mortem MRIs to find that manatees are more sophisticated navigators than previously thought. “Despite this apparently ‘simple’ brain, manatees in the wild show some cognitively sophisticated behaviors, particularly in the realm of navigation,” the authors wrote. “Future work in manatees should examine local and global brain connectivity related to spatial navigation and other complex cognitive capabilities.”
Contact Waymer at (321) 261-5903 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com. Follow him on X at @JWayEnviro.
Florida
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Guests: U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz/ (D) FL District 25
Lt. Gov. Jay Collins/(R) Florida
Ambassador Frank Mora/Former U.S. Ambassador to OAS
Raul Stolk/Expert on Latin America
Jon May/Represented Manuel Noriega
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